The mystical tradition of Judaism, namely Kabbalah, teaches that the word of God is a continuous and eternal word; if it stopped for a second, the whole creation would go back to nothing. Convinced that we are of that, the Passover of the Lord in the present moment reveals itself in all its power, because history is the place of the living exegesis of this Word that continually sustains our existence.
We offer the gaze of two beloveds, John, the apostle and Teresa de Los Andes (1900-1920), Carmelite, to let us be touched by a contemplative reading of the present moment.
John, the friend of the Lord, the apostle of the beginnings, who follows the Lord unconditionally until the end. Eyewitness of the events … “He who has seen bears witness … so that you too may believe”. (John 19, 35) He is the beloved, the disciple par excellence, the face of every disciple. He is the first to recognize Christ on the banks of the Jordan, the first next to the Cross and in the Lord’s tomb, the only one who contemplates the visions of the Apocalypse. But above all he is the disciple of love and precisely because he loves he sees and understands, because of that he is the prototype of the followers of Christ. John teaches us to contemplate and recognize in events that “it is the Lord” Ὁ Kύριός ἐστιν – Jn 21,7. He had experienced closeness and complete trust in the Lord to the point of saying, “Lord, do you want us to command that fire come down from heaven and consume them? “(Luke 9.54)
This experience of intimacy with the Lord is the gateway to the mystery. Only love for the Master allows us to read history under his light, because he is the Lord of history, the Kύριός. Take John as a friend: he teaches us the way of love which contemplates the Risen One …
St. Teresa de los Andes, another beloved of the Lord. We chose our Chilean Carmelite sister because this year we are celebrating the 100th anniversary of her dead, just on Easter Day, April 12 and we think she has something to offer us in this Jubilee Year.
She too is a disciple from the beginnings: “This fool of love made me mad” she wrote to express her experience with the Lord. Entering Carmel of Los Andes at 18 years old, she died only 11 months later. Being a novice, at the request of the prioress she did her vows “in articulo mortis”. She died on April 12, 1920 … Time enough to let herself be shaped by the love of her Lord and Master. She was canonized by Pope John Paul II on March 21, 1993.
The secret of her holiness is love, a total and unconditional love for Christ whose fascination she feels, and which leads her to leave everything to consacrate herself to him forever, to participate in the mystery of her passion and of his resurrection.
Prayer, especially before the Blessed Sacrament, offering of her life for priests (“the Carmelite is the sister of the priest” ) and for sinners; love of Christ and the Virgin Mary, without losing the love of her human brothers towards whom she had an exquisite charity and kindness, especially for the poor: “When I love, she writes, it is forever. A Carmelite never forgets. From her little cell, she accompanies the souls she loved in the world “. She contemplates the Lord everywhere, nothing happens without she raised her gaze to her Lord …
Before entering Carmel, she explained to her brother, pained and scandalized, the reasons for her vocation: “… There exists in the soul an insatiable thirst for happiness. I do not know why, but in me it is increased tenfold (…) I wish to love, but something infinite, and I wish that this being that I love does not change and is not the toy of his passions, circumstances of time and life. To love, yes, but to love the unchanging Being, God who has loved me infinitely for an eternity “.
On March 21, 1993, during the canonization of Teresa de Los Andes, Pope John Paul II declared: “To a secularized society which lives with its back to God, I present with lively joy, as a model of the eternal youth of the Gospel, this Chilean Carmelite. It brings the clear testimony of an existence which proclaims to the men of today that it is in the love, the worship and the service of God that resides the greatness and the joy, the freedom and the full realization of the human creature. Thérèse’s life shouts softly from her cloister: God alone is enough! “.
Jean and Teresa have love the Lord, they knew how to follow Him, recognize Him and contemplate Him in the “lectio divina” of the history, let us take them as friends in our way of faith.
Happy Easter
* Tradition has always attributed the fourth gospel to Saint John. We will not go into the problems posed by modern exegesis that questions this tradition. Saint John or the Johannine school? It matters little to deepen the faith experience of this exceptional witness.